“We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.”
My sponsor had told me that I would have to reach a comfort level with myself, if I was to stay sober. The problem was that I was not close to being comfortable with myself early on in the program. All I knew was that I wasn’t drinking and all these people in the program were doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. That is, that my Higher Power was working through these people. I came to believe that through the second step. At least to hope that was true.
But, all through those first five years or so, I continued to read the BB, as my sponsor urged me to do. I got so familiar with it that I could almost quote some of what I read. One of those passages dealt with the ninth step, where it said that before we were half way through we would begin to realize the promises in that book. I wanted those promises to come true, but I wasn’t sure I would ever get there.
One day, when I was in Florida visiting a friend in the program, I happened to be alone. I was thinking about the ninth step, which I had been working on, when I passed a mirror and looked in it. As I stood there I suddenly realized something. It bowled me over. The promises had come true. It waa a moment of quiet. I stood in that silence and was aware for the first time I could remember that I was at peace. That serenity was there within. I was comfortable with myself. What a miracle. It was a moment when, for the first time, I knew that I was sober at last and that I could stay sober. What I had sought, when I came into this program was within me. That tight band, which seemed to be always around my chest, was gone and I could breathe freely for the first time. And, like the tenth step said, it had just happened.
I was thinking about that moment this mroning and thoujght to myself that if I would just pause, like I did that day, I will always find those promises within myself. How can I not be grateful for all this program has given me? And it’s always just for today. Just for today I am sober and can remain that way for this day.